#vaguely inspired by a tumblr post i have been unable to find after multiple searches in the month+ it took me to write this

[aurevell]

Returning the Favor Sterek | 5k | T

Stiles pays a nighttime visit to his boyfriend in secret, or so he thinks. Unfortunately, the Hale family has keener ears than he realizes.

It’s late when Derek hears the noise at the side of the house. A creak of siding that cuts through the backdrop of cricket song. Just one lone sound, but there’s something cautious about it. Probing.

He lowers the book he’s reading, but no other sounds follow. Derek has been lying sprawled across his bed, drowsy and warm and comfortable, sweatpant-clad legs resting against the wall—but now that he’s conscious of the sound, his focus sharpening, he thinks he’s been hearing quiet noises grow nearer for some time without quite comprehending them. A wild animal outside, maybe, creeping slowly around the foundation of the house. Something large enough that the mulch in the flower bed crunches beneath its weight.

It’s not often that a solitary animal grows bold enough to venture this close to a werewolf pack—the scent always scares them off first. They don’t even get raccoons out here, especially not with the cold this time of year. It could always be their cousin Warren, who’s always thought it funny to startle his relatives with unexpected visits in the dead of night. Or any one of the nasty things in Uncle Peter’s wild stories, supernatural things that creep into the house come dark.

Derek glances at the window, book still resting on his chest, but the house is still.

Maybe it’s gone. That’s just as well: he’s too comfortable to drag himself over to the window to look.

And then another sound comes, an unmistakable creak. Heavy weight settling into place.

Downstairs, his mother sighs. “What was that?” she demands, her voice faint with distance. She and his dad are likely out on the porch swing at this time of evening, even though it’s nearly winter, lunatics that they are. “If Laura and Cora are at it again—”

“I’m sure they aren’t, Tal,” Derek’s father replies, sounding amused. “You put the fear of god in them.”

Mom scoffs. “If we have to repair another door, it’s coming out of their pockets.”

“Not everything is my fault, Mom,” Cora mutters pointedly from down the hall. There’s heavy metal coming from the vicinity of Laura’s bedroom, just low enough to be blasting from her headphones, and she doesn’t pipe up to defend herself.

The thing hasn’t gone away. Metal squeaks a moment later, and then the scrabbling returns, punctuated by a thump and a muffled grunt.

Annoyed, Derek tosses the book aside and clambers to his feet, crossing over to the window. When he hoists up the sash, letting the night chill waft in, he peers down into the dark and finds that the source is worse than anything he could have imagined.

It’s his boyfriend, scaling the side of the house like some deranged cat burglar.

Stiles is hanging onto the drainpipe, having managed to hoist himself several feet off the ground. He’s leaning against the metal awning over the kitchen window, one foot atop the shutter and the other scrabbling for purchase against the siding. At the clatter of Derek’s opening window, he looks up, startled, and nearly loses his balance.

“What are you doing here?” Derek hisses.

“Just returning the favor.” With a moment to catch himself against the awning, Stiles gets his bearing and grins. “What? Don’t make that face. C’mon, you can show up at all hours of the night, but turnabout isn’t fair play?”

With that, he sticks his tongue between his teeth, which he sometimes does unconsciously when something demands his full attention. And the perilous task of climbing should get his full attention, given how often he stumbles when both of his feet are on the ground. God, Derek is about to witness his idiot boyfriend fall to his death or something.

Stiles heaves himself mostly onto the awning, clawing for purchase with a grunt. When he reaches for the window, he loses his grip, nearly sliding backward onto the grass; in a flash of panic, Derek grabs him by his shirt and yanks him forward.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he demands, aware of their volume and even more aware of their audience.

The awning rattles as Stiles draws up his long legs to slip inside the window feet first, ducking under the sash. He’s panting a little as he pulls himself upright, though he bats his eyes sweetly in the face of Derek’s scowl. “Oh, please. I knew you’d catch me. ‘My hero,’ and all that.”

“Should have let you fall and die,” Derek retorts, shutting the window.

“Probably. Oh man, that was so athletic. Sometimes, I amaze myself.”

Derek doesn’t have anything smart to say to that. He’s only half paying attention, too busy bracing for the discussion sure to follow.

He and Stiles may as well have stomped up and down the stairs blowing air horns as far as the rest of the house goes. Everyone will have heard. Derek is absolutely sure because you can hear a pin drop, like no one’s even moving, like everyone’s waiting with bated breath—either gleeful or judgmental or both—to hear what comes next. Even Laura’s deafening headphones have gone silent. Fuck.

Worst of all…Stiles doesn’t know any of this. He doesn’t yet know about the secret the Hale family hides, or how keenly they can hear, or that every word he says will be seized up and cheerfully dissected and gossiped about in real time.

Read the rest on AO3

[izzy-b-hands]

20-30!

Thank you so much for asking!!!!

20. Favorite character to write?

Already answered, but I don’t mind re-answering cuz I thought maybe I’d narrow my three way tie, but alas, no lol. Still a tie between Ahkmenrah, Snafu, and Skwisgaar.

21. Least favorite character to write? 

Ooh-tbh, Larry from NATM just because I feel like I always make him an asshole? Like, I haven’t published all my fic ideas for NATM because I keep making him really mean? And in some it works but in others I’m like ‘jesus chill Lee he’s just a Dude trying his best’ but also at the same time I feel the way Stiller played him and his character arc means he’s got some major ego to him as the films go on? Idk that isn’t a hot take or anything just me being frustrated with Ben Stiller lol

22. Favorite story you’ve ever written? 

Hard choice, because I love all my kids, but I cried after writing this one lol: https://aboutthatmelancholystorm.tumblr.com/post/186781309036/you-know-that-i-love-you

It hit some personal stuff for me, so to be able to have it work organically in a fic so I could also like, mini therapy session myself? Cool af. Also, ppl seemed to like this a lot too, and while that validation isn’t the only reason I write, it’s always cool when my writing makes ppl happy. 

23. Least favorite story you’ve ever written? 

I don’t really have a least favorite, but I do have some I’m more frustrated with, due to how long they took me to write, etc. Currently? The answer to this is my Mark the Date series because A. it is taking me a day and an age to finish it and B. I feel like it kinda flopped, so it’s hard to pull up any energy to finish it, but like...I may as well now lol. I’ll get it done eventually.

24. Favorite scene you’ve written? 

Oh god tbh I have too many I love just cuz like

I can go back to how I felt writing them and yeah

But as of most recent fics, I really this bit: 

-Snafu patted the blanket near his head, and waited for Eugene to put out his pipe and lay back beside him before snuggling close to him. “You could be right. Could be God. Could just be love.” “How’s that?” “I think love has its own way. Even before you meet someone, even before you know you’re fallin’ for ‘em. Love’s just…out there, like the air or somethin’. Finds you when the time is right, and finds who you click with. You gotta do the rest, the stayin’ in love part, but that bringing together, that first spark…that’s love just existing, and doin’ what it needs to so the world keeps spinnin’, so people make it through tough shit,” Snafu replied. “I like that,” Eugene said. “Think love did a good job with us. Makin’ sure we found each other.” Snafu pressed a kiss softly to the corner of Eugene’s mouth. “Sure did. Wouldn’t ever want to be with anyone else. I don’t even know what that looks like, and I don’t want to.” “Same here,” Eugene’s mouth was warm as he kissed him back. “Here’s to love for making sure you found me.” -

from this fic: https://aboutthatmelancholystorm.tumblr.com/post/186926226531/absolution-is-the-taste-of-your-lips

Because I’m sappy af more than I let on, and also this was a chance to like, write out my own feelings via Snafu. And that was a pretty cool and fulfilling thing for me, ya know? 

25. Favorite line you’ve ever written? 

oh god this is another hard one to narrow down but

I always come back to this line and go ‘oh shit did I really write that. Nah, someone better than me at this had to have. They briefly possessed me or something”:  

-Music and talking and shouting and footsteps collide kaleidoscopic in his ears, but none bearing the one sound that he’d run to if he heard it.-

from this fic, mentioned twice now in this post lol: https://aboutthatmelancholystorm.tumblr.com/post/186781309036/you-know-that-i-love-you

I really love alliteration, and for me this line just sums up how it feels to walk thru a city when you aren’t just wandering really, but are looking or waiting for someone, and have that awful yet sometimes good feeling of expecting to hear or see them but it feels like you’re waiting or searching forever and in the meantime the city just lives on around you, a stopped platelet stuck in a vein full of vitality. Like, idk if it hit any of my readers that way, but that’s what I was trying to get across lol, so the line always hits me hard in a good way when I scroll thru my writing tag and see it. 

26. Story you’re most proud of? 

Gosh

I gotta choose just one kid for this aldsfkja I’m bad at choosing I love my gaggle of ragtag goofballs. I have an original piece I’d choose for this, but I’ve never posted it on here, so I’m gonna choose out of my fanfic on here instead.

One I am really proud of is this one: https://aboutthatmelancholystorm.tumblr.com/post/186781309036/you-know-that-i-love-you

and I know it’s the third time it’s been part of an answer on here but

I really love this one idk. Thinking back to how I felt while writing it, how it all flowed in a certain way. The whole experience was just something else, and I’m proud of this one in a certain way I find myself, funnily enough, unable to describe. 

27. Best review you ever got? 

Okay this sounds cheesy but like

I really do love and appreciate every review or review-like thing I’ve ever gotten so I can’t choose just one for this

Like, y’all gotta understand, I’ve deleted some of it and erased traces of it from my blog, but I’ve written for years on here, I have some stuff on my ao3, and for the longest time I got nothing back, or very nearly nothing. Maybe a few likes, but no comments and not much else. I always just rolled with it and assumed I just wasn’t writing anything good enough to inspire reviews. Idk if that’s true or not, but in any case it means I cherish every comment, like, reblog, and anything review-like in nature because I’m so grateful to have it now, and I know it could well be pure luck that I stumbled up on a really supportive bunch of fandoms with great readers. 

In other words, thank y’all for every kind word and like and reblog and also I may be an immortal feeding off of validation of my art, but we’ll see on that last bit, because I haven’t tested it. 

28. Worst review you ever got?

One from middle school. I’d just finished my very first novel, gave it to a friend to read, and he said it ‘smacked of being too fanciful and childish, something only kids and women would read’ (it was a YA fantasy novel so I mean... what exactly he expected, idk cuz he knew what it was before I gave it to him, like it’s supposed to have those elements as a lot of these sorts of novels/stories do, and that isn’t a bad thing about them at all, so like...what his damage was idek.)

Also this is the same dude who texts me randomly and is really weird abt his friendship with me and happens to be an English teacher now (RIP to his students.) 

Anyway, after he said that I tossed a review right back, because well, middle school and also I was very upset with him because I’d not asked for anything other than a general ‘if you picked this up randomly and started it, would it suck you in enough to keep reading or would you put it down’ like that was literally all I needed him to answer for me. So I told him his latest novel (his second at that point) was essentially just him masturbating to his own opinions (because he’s an arguer, who loves to tell ppl they’re always wrong, and that’s by his own admission) for one hundred pages, and not in a way that anyone else would care to read. He was pissed, but so was I. We didn’t talk for a good week, and we had almost all our classes together lol. 

Like, getting nothing back in review sucks too, but this one has stuck with me forever. Best part? I mentioned it to him a few years back, and he only vaguely remembered it, and followed it with “but I’ve said a lot of rough stuff about your work. I mean, it deserved it at the time, but you might be good at this someday!” 

I didn’t smack him, but I really, really wanted to. 

29. Favorite story/poem of another author

This doesn’t specify on Tumblr or not, so I’ve got two: one from outside tumblr, and one from on here.

A. When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be by John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be   Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,Before high-pilèd books, in charactery,   Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,   Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,And think that I may never live to trace   Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,   That I shall never look upon thee more,Never have relish in the faery power   Of unreflecting love—then on the shoreOf the wide world I stand alone, and thinkTill love and fame to nothingness do sink.

B. Again, this Tumblr one could be a huge ass list because y’all on here are amazing, but one I’ve been rereading over and over again recently is @xmxisxforxmaybe ‘s Remnants series, which can be found here: https://xmxisxforxmaybe.tumblr.com/post/186702235396/remnants-complete-work

Like, Ahk as a character is captured so well, and I love the way the plot twines and also when the smut comes up? Very good A+ smut, something I value pretty highly on and off Tumblr because man, sometimes smut is just work to write, so I appreciate it when it’s really good. All around, this series has captured my heart and I legit have a link to it saved on multiple devices so if I need something to read, I can just pull it up right away. 

30. Hardest part of writing? 

Self-doubt. It’s the biggest hurdle for any artist, regardless of the art in question I think, but with writing it seems to double down a lot. Like, you have to really get out of your own head, even as you spend all your time there with your writing ideas. Shit gets weird and twisted, man. 

For the longest time, I really let self-doubt defeat me too, and I regret the time I lost to that. I still get hit with it randomly, cause I don’t think it every really goes away for any writer, not even the big names like Stephen King or Neil Gaiman (who I’m half tempted to @ on here purely because I wanna know his feelings on this stuff because I respect and admire him as an artist and his thoughts very much, but also he’s a very busy man so I’m not gonna bug him by doing that lol.) 

All there is to do is to work with it, push past it, and most importantly keep writing. I have days where that feels like the hardest thing, but each day I manage to get past it and get the words down? I let myself feel proud of that, and mark it as an achievement in my Big Book of Stuff I’ve Done in This Life.